Why They Take So Long

April 14, 2010

Students who take too long to earn bachelor's degrees are the frustration of parents, college leaders and policy makers alike -- who see the six-year bachelor's degree (or longer) as being more expensive for all involved, and particularly wasteful when many campuses are bulging due to increased enrollments.

A new study (abstract available here) from the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that the growth in the length of time needed to earn bachelor's degrees is indeed real and cause for concern. But the study finds that the shift, over recent decades, to longer time-to-degree rates is not uniform across colleges, but is concentrated among students who enroll at less competitive four-year public institutions and at community colleges. Further, the analysis finds likely links between longer time-to-degree rates and resources, both of institutions and of students.

The implication of the study, the authors write, is that those who want students to graduate more promptly need to talk about money. "Our finding of increased stratification in resources among colleges and universities -- both between publics and privates and within the public sector -- suggests that the attenuation of resources at less-selective public universities in particular limits the rate of degree attainment," write the authors, John Bound of the University of Michigan, Michael F. Lovenheim of Cornell University, and Sarah Turner of the University of Virginia.

The authors start by verifying the widely-held view that too many students take longer than people expect (four years) to earn a bachelor's degree. Using databases that track students over time, they write that of those who graduated from high school in 1972, 58 percent of those who eventually earned a bachelor's degree did so within four years of finishing high school, which is what many consider to be "on time." For the class that graduated in 1992, only 44 percent did so. Then the authors examine time-to-degree rates by sector and find relatively little change among private colleges or among top public universities. But among public institutions not considered "top 50," the authors find a contrast.

Among those at the top-ranked publics, 55.5 percent finish in four years. At all other state and local institutions, the share is only 34.7 percent.

This raises the question of why, and the authors explore various options. One theory -- frequently advanced by those who question the goals of having more Americans earn college degrees -- is that those coming into higher education outside of competitive colleges are less well prepared, and so are unable to move ahead in college at expected rates. But the authors find no evidence for this (based either on the courses students have taken before college or on their performance in college), and reject this theory.

They do find evidence of links between various measures of resources and time to degree. For example, while acknowledging that any one resource measure may be imperfect, they examine student-to-faculty ratios. During the period studied, student-faculty ratios increased overall in public institutions from 25.5 to 29.8 to 1. But at the top 50 institutions (and at private colleges), the ratios decreased, meaning that the increase everywhere else was larger. Other measures as well, the authors write, suggest that the institutions that have preserved time-to-degree rates are those with relatively more resources.

As another illustration of the resource impact, the authors focus on states that experienced enrollment increases. Given that state appropriations frequently (and consistently in recent years) have lagged such increases, they speculate that enrollment increases decrease resources per student, and thus could increase time to degree. And that's what they find: For every 1 percent increase in a state's population of 18-year-olds, time to degree increases by 0.71 years. For those outside the top 50 institutions, the increase is greater -- 1.11 years -- again suggesting that states find ways to provide more to the more competitive institutions.

Resource gaps also extend to the students at the different types of institutions -- with those outside of the elite institutions more likely to work longer hours in jobs, limiting the time they can devote to their educations.
"The sum total of our evidence points strongly toward the central role of declines in both personal and institutional resources available to students in explaining the increases in time to baccalaureate degree in the U.S.," the authors conclude. "That these increases are concentrated among students attending public colleges and universities outside the most selective few suggests a need for more attention to how these institutions adjust to budget constraints and student demand and how students at these colleges finance higher education."

— Scott Jaschik

Comments on Why They Take So Long

Diminishing Teaching Loads

Posted by Daniel L. Bennett at The Center for College Affordability and Productivity on April 14, 2010 at 10:15am EDT

Research that CCAP is involved indicates that faculty teaching loads have significantly declined over the past several decades, presumably in favor of greater research output. Having only read the abstract and this IHE story, I'm left wondering if the authors addresses the issue that diminishing teaching loads by faculty have had on time-to-degree increases over time.

They note that students are working more to cover the rising cost of college, which may induce a crowding out effect on study time. However, I've seen other economic research (see http://www.bls.gov/osmr/pdf/ec080020.pdf) which suggests that students work not to help pay for tuition, but rather for spending money, and that hours worked does not hinder academic performance.

Number of credits taken is more important

Posted by Paul Headlee , Principal Budget and Policy Analyst at Idaho Legislature on April 14, 2010 at 10:30am EDT

While time to completion is an important metric I believe the number of credits taken to achieve a 4-year degree is more indicative of state resources consumed by students. For example, a student may take the equivalent of 5 years of credits to complete a four-year degree. This is more of a drain on resources than a student who takes the equivalent of four years of credits, but does so over a five year period due to the need to work for one or two semesters to earn enough money for tuition. Therefore, time to completion should be correlated with number of credits taken.

Place to start comparing what NBER folks found. . .

Posted by Cliff Adelman , Senior Associate at Institute for Higher Education Policy on April 14, 2010 at 11:30am EDT

Partly in response to Headlee's comments: you can find tables, based on the same data sets the NBER folks used, that include both average credits (and SDs), and more importantly, average credits by major, and average time-to-degree (and SDs) in "Principal Indicators of Student Academic Histories in Postsecondary Education, 1972-2000" on-line somewhere at ED.gov. You will also find a multi-variate analysis of time-to-degree (without the kind of institutional variations that the NBER people added) as one of the appendices to "The Toolbox Revisited: Paths to Degree Completion from High School Through College." While I like the institutional variations found by the NBER research, there are a couple of big items missing from the analysis: (1) because it is grounded in grade-cohort national longitudinal studies, it is about your daughter, not your brother-in-law, and older beginning students are going to take longer to finish degrees, as anyone with 2 kids, 2 jobs, 2 cars, and 2 sub-prime mortgages would;(2) the killers in terms of time-to-degree can be found in (a) the number of courses from which a student either withdrew without penalty or repeated (this used to be known as the DWI Index), (b) changing majors, as half of our students do, and (c) attending more than 2 schools. Perhaps some of this is related to institutional type (although nomads really can't be assigned to a single institutional type), perhaps not. Haven't read the full NBER study, so can't say whether it dealt with these variables, but they are very worth considering, and are all common-sense.

Posted by Louise Hainline , Dean at Brooklyn College of CUNY on April 14, 2010 at 2:15pm EDT

The finding reported, though correlational is hardly surprising. But what students do outside of class determines college outcomes arguably as much or more than what happens in the classroom. The expectation that college “should” take 4 years has become an anchronism in the face of the changes in our college-aged population. The majority of those who can afford more expensive private or elite public universities have the family resources or scholarships to make being a college student their full-time “occupation” and commitment. Such students, if they work, tend to work at part-time on-campus jobs and live in dorms where they do not have to shop, cook or take care of a home or family.

For many at public-assisted universities, attending college must coexist with providing for basic life needs (housing, food, transportation). A large number have significant responsibilities to and for families. This group, if full-time, usually cannot devote the out-of-class preparation time needed to excel academically, whatever their intellectual abilities. Some well-prepared full-time students can complete college effectively in three years. Part-time attendance necessarily leads to spreading college over more than four years. Individuals with work and family obligations may need five, six or more to complete college, but colleges many times do not provide the types of support they require to persist to graduation (e.g., campus child care vs. organic food in the cafeteria or climbing walls in the new gym).

Commitment

Posted by Dave on April 14, 2010 at 8:15pm EDT

Louise has nailed it. We really have to look at how central going to college is to a student's life. Our children "went away" to college. We were fortunate to be able to pay their way, and it was understood that college was to be their focus. They did not need to work. They did not have families to take care of. They were no longer enmeshed or entangled in the culture of the local high school or community. Lucky them. They graduated in 4 years without a hitch. I have taught for over 30 years in large public universities (2 in the top 50, 2 not), and my spouse taught for over 20 years in community colleges. Many of the students we had were like our kids--engaged, focused on college, and so on. But most had much more complicated lives. They were often first-generation students, and neither they nor their families really understood what going to college meant. They were locals, often straining against the burden of inescapable personal history and relationships. No fresh start for them. Many were not "kids" at all. They were older, often returning students. They had families to support and sustain. They were not fortunate enough to have someone pay their way. They worked at one or more jobs that were often intellectually and culturally at odds with college study. Many of them were not the stellar students one tends to find at top fifty universities and liberal arts colleges. And so on. But when you add it all up, it becomes pretty clear that doing their college work was not necessarily or even possibly the main focus of their lives while they were in college. It is no wonder that they do not graduate in 4 years. And generally, there is no "fault" here. Some students manage to handle all of this. Others are overwhelmed. Better financial aid might help with some issues, but not with all. The problem is that we are trying to apply the old "four-years away at school" model to a very difficult and very different situation. We should forget about that model and look, insread, and indicators of student progress toward a degree: course selection, following a clear curriculum, maintaining some degree of progress every semester, stay in touch if staying out for a time, and so on. And we create institutional policies and procedures that promote continuing progress rather than an arbitrary completion in 4 years. Colleges often don't need more resources; they need to do different things with what they've got.

Other factors

Posted by CKM-W , Adjunct at Community Colleges of Indiana on April 15, 2010 at 5:30am EDT

1) The major can also affect time-to-degree. Some concentrations have required courses that, along with satisfying core requirements, add up to considerably more credit hours than other majors.

2) This speaks to lack of resources, one supposes--some schools/departments that do not offer required courses frequently enough to enable all their majors to fit them into their four-year schedules. I have known more than a few students who after four years still had to take one three-hour course that, when offered during those four years, had always conflicted with another required course.

3) Some community colleges are going to see increases in completion time, even where the students are full-time: they are now becoming so physically overwhelmed by the current influx of remedial students that they do not have enough classrooms and are decreasing the frequency of offering some nonremedial required courses.

Why they take so long...

Posted by EnEm on April 15, 2010 at 1:30pm EDT

"The implication of the study, the authors write, is that those who want students to graduate more promptly need to talk about money". This statement says it all. This is the real cause.

One cannot expect students who have to pay their way through college to complete their studies on time and get good grades to boot! It is a horendous fact of life when kids have to fend for themselves, work long hours, do not eat right, spend sleepless nights to make ends meet and attend classes. This is a reflection on the callousness of those parents who can't wait to empty out Junior's room once he has "moved out".

There should be collge courses in good parenting. And yes, parents interested in taking these courses should fend for themselves.

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